I'm going to assume you installed 6.06 (LTS)...

You really don't need the virus scanner... This isn't windows. Keep it off your systems. I'm of the opinion 90% of system slowdowns are from virus scanners checking every interrupt, file, api request. So, rather than having a virus hit your computer you have one installed full time slowing everything down.

The permission system in ubuntu also works. If you happen to get a virus (which there are few in the linux neighbourhood), it will not infect the whole system. If anything, you may get a zero day exploit or worm... which even the best virus scanner won't save you from. This is why Ubuntu's daily updates help you stay on top of things. Much better than Microsoft's monthly "Patch Tuesday" mentality.

Note:
You're most likely *not* using pico, but rather a GNU replacement named nano. Nano is a clone of pico, and my favourite editor for linux. If you want to use a non-command line editor, the default editor on ubuntu is "gedit" which you can also use via sudo. Gedit is also conveniently placed in the menu under "Applications->Accessories->Text Editor". Novel!

If your pc had onboard video, that may be the card it detected. Which is then why your nvidia drivers were blowing things up. I had a similar problem with my (onboard) sound card. Previously windows used to skip the onboard card and use my SB Live installed in a PCI slot. Linux, on the other hand (although logically), chose the first "card" it found, the onboard one. I had to manually turn the onboard sound off via the BIOS for the SB Live to be selected automatically.

(this'll probably be a lot...)

Heh.. the one thing that drives me most nuts(!) about the ubuntu forums is that they're.. well, a mess. And the majority of the users writing how-to's come from windows. Believe it or not, a reboot wasn't actually necessary when enabling the "restricted" nVidia drivers.

I'm sure the steps were close, I'll summarize:

* Enable the universe and multiverse repositories
* install linux-restricted-modules
* install nvidia-glx
* run sudo nvidia-glx-config enable
* "Reboot"

Reboot loads the nvidia driver (sudo modprobe nvidia) would do the same, and logging out of the gnome desktop would restart the entire gui.

For the record, nVidia's restricted driver is enabled by default in 7.04 (which should officially be released this week.. maybe tomorrow even.)

There's very few things with linux that actually require a reboot, and they are:
1 - kernel update.
2 - mass module updates (they come with #1, usually)
3 - a complete fuckup (rare)

Every driver can typically be removed (sudo rmmod [module]) and installed (sudo modprobe [module]) at anytime. Any "service" that starts up on boot (including the GUI) can be restarted manually (sudo /etc/init.d/[serviceName] restart - where serviceName is whatever it is you want to restart. 'gdm' is the desktop manager/gui)

As for the pci, it looks like nvidia-glx-enable was drunk and just failed to detect the proper location of the card.

AVG runtime for linux is horseshit. If you want an AV, I'd actually recommend clamav. I have it, it scans all email on the server. On desktops I only ever use it to do manual scans.

To find out what drivers are installed: lsmod
To find out your USB devices: lsusb
To find out your PCI (and more) devices: lspci
(note the trend?)

To see a dump of system messages: dmesg
There's also a bunch of various logs in /var/log

No matter how often you see people mention 'setting a root password' ignore them. sudo is your friend. If you need a non-stop root command line, just use 'sudo su -' in a terminal or open a 'root terminal' from Applications->System Tools.

That's all I can think of for now.

Mike, if you're using 'sudo' on a gui app, you should probably use 'gksudo' so that it sets the proper environment for the gui app. :P

And mikey's reason for the funny detection sounds accurate. Of course, feel free to prove it wrong by saying you don't have an onboard video ;)

Oh yeah, if your GUI happens to do a #3 of my list, ctrl-alt-backspace will attempt to kill it (and forcing it to restart). Failing that, ctrl-alt-f1 will give you a text console where you can kill stuff. Failing that, reboot :)

Feel free to use ctrl-alt-f1 (through 6) at anytime for your own 'top secret' console. ctrl-alt-f7 will bring you back to the gui.

(now I'm just spewing stuff)

In gnome, some of the default hotkeys are fun:

alt-f1 (applications menu)
alt-f2 (run box)

alt-tab (window switcher)
ctrl-alt-left|right|up|down will switch desktops

ctrl-alt-d (hide everything, or show if it's already hidden)

you can view, and configure them all in System->Pref->Keyboard Shortcuts

in nautilus, ctrl-f, ctrl-s, ctrl-l (find, select pattern, location bar) are all handy.

that's about all i use on a regular basis, and I'm a keyboard jockey.

Wow hehe. Crazy lots to respond to. Okay, here goes:

1) D: nope, not 6.06LTS; it was 6.10. Not sure of the significance...

2) mike: I had heard of this nano thing, but long ago, and of course, not using the info, forgot about it. Interesting that you can run it by typing "pico"... that's a cute feature. Also, I knew about Gedit 'cause I've been religiously checking the names of default programs in Gnome as I view files or do various things - I just had no idea what to do once I got into a command-line environment. ;)

3) Bothaya: The onboard video thing sounds intuitively (not like I'd really know for sure heh) like a good explanation for the messed up PCI bus id. But, I'm afraid I am indeed going to have to pop and say I don't have one. ;)

4) D: I don't think I ever installed linux-restricted-modules - at least not deliberately. Was this a mistake? Did I miss a step somewhere?

Also, thanks for all the help. I'm proud to say I'd already started to pick up some of this stuff, but it's good to have a reference that I know is coming from people's actual experiences. I was definitely alarmed by the number of people giving advice on the forums who hadn't been using Linux much longer than I had ;)

I will heed your advice, and leave AVG off. I like the idea of being able to safely run a system without it.

Oh, and when I woke up this morning, I found I didn't mind the interface so much. I'd still like to get a theme installed though. I've tried four or five from Gnome-look that were actually labeled "themes" (and appeared to follow the correct format), but so far I get an error when I try to install any one of them.

Also good to know that rebooting can be considered a last resort. It's one of the few things that, in my case, Ubuntu doesn't seem to do a whole lot faster than Windows did. And of course, if I rarely have to do it, that's just fine.

Actually, after the fiasco with my video I did consider putting Windows back on. I didn't want to, but I have work to do, and I depend on my computer for it. The spare beside me isn't really sufficient. But then I realized that, with my continued unwillingness to install XP on a system of my own, ever, there are so many security updates (and hence, reboots) to be done that I'd be there all night just getting Windows back to where it was supposed to be. And then, of course, I'd have to go and install Firefox and OpenOffice, and all my communications/archiving/image editing stuff, etc., etc. And wait... Ubuntu already includes all of this. So, clearly faster to install it twice than to install Windows once.

Oh, and another comment I have to make here. I thought Windows Update had fairly decent download speeds at most times of day. Then I installed Ubuntu. 750kB/s??? What is this, Star Trek?

I'm curious to know, is Linux making better use of my bandwidth somehow? Do the software repositories just have ass kicking connections? Or, is it maybe some of both?

Linux (unix) networking is typically better. Always has been. Wait til you try and copy large files from a windows box and it runs like shit. There's always this "strange" speed killer between windows and linux.

At work for example, I have my linux laptop, mac workstation, and windows workstation. It's not always super consistant; Here's a little speed chart of what I average:

linux <-> Mac = 8MB/s
linux <-> Win = 250KB/s
Mac <-> Win = 400KB/s

And yeah, 6.06LTS vs. 6.10 does make a difference, especially for a n00b. As ubuntu continues to evolve, they are releasing long term support (lts) versions every 3 years, which gets just that.. long term support. You'd definitely find more/easier support for it. The on the path to 6.10 they changed a _lot_ of underlying technical features, which can get confusing if you read help from 6.06 and try to apply it to 6.10...

But, if you're going to change anything at this point, I say go for 7.04 :)

gksudo update-manager -d